International contemporary art

Grey Matter - In his book entitled ‘The phenomenology of Perception‘, the French thinker Maurice Merleau-Ponty suggests ‘the body is our general medium for having a world‘. In her exhibition‘"Grey Matter’ , Doa Aly creates a series of situations depicting a fantastic world where body movement has been limited to a rigid and pre-determined trajectory, to explore possibilities produced by imposing a set of constraints on the body in relation to the space this body occupies.

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Aly uses the study of human anatomy as a point of departure for illustrating her figures. In each of the constructed scenarios, body parts pertaining to motion and communication are displaced from their original location. Out of context, these 'entities' assume hybrid forms that defy classification, becoming simultaneously natural and artificial, organic and geometric, familiar and elusive.

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The figures are painted using the medium of enamel on large scale horizontal plywood supports, the artist uses a combination of black and white paint as the basic component, yet the palette she produces, in its range and diversity, eludes precise definition. The glossy reflective finish of enamel (generally associated with industrial usage) contributes to the additional isolation of the represented figures by repelling the gaze of the viewer, while the texture produced by layering the viscous medium triggers the urge to touch its surface. - In Doa Aly's imaginary world, bodies resembling the human form remain suspended between opposed states of being, perpetually oscillating between polarities, yet never fully achieving either.